Dear friends and colleagues
I’ve grown a little impatient, so instead of sharing my new work over the next two weeks, I am starting today. You will note that initially, I attempt to share my understanding of some of the literature I have consulted, and later, I will share some conclusions I have drawn from personal experience.
This Table of Contents will give you an idea of what I have covered in my new document thus far. After that, I will share the Preface, Introduction and Chapter One for this week.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE 2 INTRODUCTION 3 CHAPTER ONE 4 Island vs I-land 4 CHAPTER TWO 5 2.1 What makes people happy? 5 2.1.1 Basic Needs 5 2.2 THE POOR AND LESS FORTUNATE 6
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SOCIETY 7
3.1 What is the nature of our South African society in general? 7 Figure 1 Typical Functionalist Society 8
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The Role and Function of Education 11
4.1 My educational journey. 11 4.2 Function of Education 13 Figure 2 The Road to Success 15 4.3 Are we meeting our own objectives? 18 4.4 Why? 21
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QUO VADIS 25
Figure 4 Possible interpretation of Idea: Leave No-One Behind 28 Figure 6 Comparison of subjects for the Transvaal department of education (1977) vs our current NCS (Dixen, et al., 2018) 30 5.2.2.1 Language of Learning and Teaching (LOLT) 31 5.2.2.2 The Master and Apprentice approach 35 5.2.2.3 De-centralisation 37 Figure 6 (Attachment B) 39 5.2.2.4 De-centralisation continued 40 Figure 7 An idea of what could be considered as Learning Areas 45 5.2.2.5 SPORT 45 5.2.2.6 I’ve done it 45 5.2.2.7 45 REFERENCES 46
PREFACE
This paper is intended as a discussion document. I have reached a point in my life where I do not wish to engage in research, and it would be great if a student or students at South African universities or other tertiary institutions could find a worthwhile topic for research somewhere in my rambling.
We have covered a lot of ground in our country since 1994, and I have heard politicians and their followers say the same things every year. Unfortunately, protest marches and grandstand speeches will not change the plight of the destitute. We are living in a capitalist country, and sadly, people who had nothing good to say about “the rich” still carry on blaming “the rich” even when they have become rich.
Unemployment and poverty will remain a major problem as long as our population keeps on growing despite our dire circumstances, and it does not matter which political party is in power. Claims that education holds the potential to steer us towards better lives become farcical when it is considered as something that can be acquired through twelve years of mainstream township schooling.
In this document, I refer to township mainstream public schools as an almost separate institution due to the major differences between them and ex-Model C schools. I also allude to our emphasis on achieving matric certification and question the lack of emphasis on the huge number of children who drop out of school en route to grade 12.
I wish to make it clear from the outset that I am not advocating the cessation of mainstream public schools, but rather suggest that we need to explore other educational paths that will lead our children to become valuable assets to society and the world of work.
INTRODUCTION
I have been thinking about what I shared in “It is about I” (Accom, 2015), where I suggested that this world could be a much better place to live in if every individual seeks to make it a better place for the people around them. Arguing that it all starts with us as individuals.
I shared my perceptions of what could constitute a just and contented society without having to subscribe to volumes of rules and regulations to modify social behaviour. I trod cautiously among religious barbs and intimated that, despite considerable technological advances, our social behaviour appears to continue to stem from primitive aspirations. We remain human, perceive events in humanity, and all too often fail to realise the fundamental human role we could play in making this planet a better place for all.
I went to reasonable lengths to share a simple philosophy that … “One firstly needs to love oneself and then one should aspire to love one’s neighbour as one loves oneself”.
Recent events regarding racial and religious intolerance prompted me to revisit what I wrote in “It is about I”(Accom, 2015), and I am still convinced that the solution is simple … learn to love yourself and then love your neighbour as you love yourself.
The love referred to in my interpretation is not narcissistic, but rather “a way of consciously thinking about something … considering the Greek interpretation of at least four types of love; Agape, Phileo, Storge and Eros. Implying that, “by simply saying you love someone can mean any of several things and the boundaries of these feelings mustn’t become blurred.” (Accom, 2015).
CHAPTER ONE
Island vs I-land
“I” is not a citizen of I-land, au contraire, I is always relative to someone, something, somewhere, sometime. We define and express ourselves in relation to something…that something can even mean ourselves.
In “Intellectual history in contemporary South Africa”, Michael Onyebuchi Eze suggests that “a person is a person through other people”. (Eze, 2010) Existence happens through the expression of self in relation to life around it. This life around one can assume the form of other human beings or flora and fauna. People live their lives in relation to things around them. Things may take the form of pastimes, work, art or any occupation of one’s body or mind. This relation to something that exists outside the individual resides in a physical location somewhere and happens in time.
Spend some time just observing people around you. It does not matter what you think of them or what they look like to you; there is bound to be someone or something that cares about them, or that they care about. There is bound to be an entity that adds meaning to their lives or has some form of influence on them. Something that they can relate to to give expression to their existence. If you could follow them without being observed, you would find that they belong somewhere or relate to some thing or some body. What any person or living entity perceives or experiences about itself could translate into an expression of itself. Impressions of us come from our expressions.
Generally, people have an impact on their environment, and their environment has an impact on them. Even if the population in any location is decreased to one person, the same would apply. A person impacts the environment, and the environment impacts them. This environment could take on any form; it could be inhabited by one animal or many, or one person or people or situated next to a river or on a mountain. Humans are born with an innate ability to establish real or surreal relationships irrespective of their locale. Yet, we often find ourselves in situations where there are other beings, and we fail to recognise the fact that we are obliged to co-inhabit with those beings, and that our actions will unavoidably have an effect on those beings and the environment. One is therefore who you are through other beings. “Umuntu, ngumuntu ngabantu”, loosely translated, this Zulu proverb means, “I am a person through people”.
To be continued next Sunday.